Surveillance In Schools: Where Is This Taking Us?

What will the schools and educational institutions of the future be like? To judge from developments in the United States and China, probably beyond anything we could imagine. Signs are, we’re headed toward a scenario where students will be permanently under surveillance by cameras, algorithms and all kinds of technologies designed to not only to monitor their movements, but what they’re thinking.

Where is all this going? Will technology improve learning and help keep the peace, or will it lead to a dystopia that prepares young people for life in a goldfish bowl? In my generation, a number of people were worried about the increasing collection of personal data and the loss of privacy: most likely, in the next generation, a majority of people will just see it as a fact of life, as something familiar they experimented ubiquitously during their whole education.

Either way, the use of surveillance in schools is spreading, and potentially changing the way children and young people are educated, particularly in the United States, China and France. I have no doubt about the positive potential of analytics to improve education, but I also believe we need an informed discussion about its use and the implications for privacy, security and discipline, if we are to avoid de facto decisions being made that will shape society without adequate reflection.

Teaching Innovation at IE Business School since 1990, and now, hacking education as Senior Advisor for Digital Transformation at IE University. BSc (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), MBA (Instituto de Empresa) and Ph.D. in Management Information Systems (UCLA).